The Irish gentleman who declined to aid an enterprise for the benefit
of posterity, remarking that posterity had never done anything for
him, was, after all the sport made of him, no unfair representative of
the bulk of mankind. There is talk enough about doing great things for
the advantage of future ages, but the real motive is apt to be
something very different. To perpetuate their own name or fame, men or
nations often set up lasting monuments, and sometimes unintentionally
convey thereby to after times a few more or less instructive
indications of the artistic or industrial skill of their day and
generation. To further their own immediate ends, or to secure some
benefit to their immediate descendants, men frequently undertake great
material enterprises, and sometimes the work so done remains for ages
the source of perennial good. But very rarely, if ever, can it be said
that any work of man was undertaken solely, or even chiefly, for the
benefit of posterity--more rarely still, for remote posterity.
Hence it happens that we owe far more to accident, to fire, rapine,
volcanic outbursts, and the protecting care of desolation, for the
knowledge we have of times long past, than to any intentional legacies
of art or learning left us by the men of those times. The lost and
abandoned tools, weapons, and ornaments of the stone age are all that
we have to tell us of the childhood of humanity. Had no fiery
disasters ever overtaken the pile-dwellers of the Swiss lakes, we
should probably have never heard of such a people.
To the mud and ashes of Vesuvius, rather than to the historians of the
Roman Empire, we owe the best of our knowledge of how Roman cities
looked and Roman citizens lived eighteen hundred years ago. In the
fragments of a _terra cotta_ library, buried in the ruins of a royal
palace, we find almost our only records of the arts and sciences of
ancient Assyria. Under the ash heaps of a forgotten age, in Cyprus,
Cesnola finds the only known vestiges of a primitive civilization,
reaching far back into the domain of mythology. Thanks to the
destroyers of Troy and Mycenæ, and the protective care of temporary
oblivion, Schliemann is now able to verify tradition and lay before an
astonished and delighted world numerous precious relics of heroic ages
hitherto remembered only in song.
Who can estimate the value of these and similar findings to us--the
value of the revelations they bring of man's condition in those remote
ages? Who can say how many or how few the ages will be ere the time
comes when the antiquaries of the future will be rejoicing over
equally fragmentary vestiges of the doings and possessions of our day?
On the other hand, who can estimate the value of the knowledge lost
beyond hope of recovery, or the checks to human progress experienced,
in the repeated wiping out, so to speak, of the higher races and the
civilizations they embodied? And who can say that similar disasters
may not come again and again to humanity?
Suppose a pestilence peculiarly fatal to the white race should fall
upon the world to-day, crippling, perhaps exterminating, the now
dominant civilized nations; how long would the material elements of
our science and art or general culture remain with power to enlighten
the barbarous tribes that would inherit the earth? Human progress has
more than once been set back for centuries by such natural or
unnatural causes, leaving the sites of once splendid civilizations to
be overrun with barbaric hordes knowing nothing of the better times
that went before.
Suppose, again, that, by one of those geologic changes so numerous in
the history of our unstable globe, the existing continents should sink
a thousand feet. Every center of modern civilization would be
submerged. The great social and political organizations of humanity
would be broken up, and in the wreck of nations that would ensue very
little of the glory and culture of the race could survive. The earth
is dotted with vestiges of lost and forgotten empires. Can we
reasonably assume, in the face of such facts, that the nations of
to-day are immortal?
The question is: Shall we continue to trust to chance, as all other
civilizations have, for the preservation of the conquests we have made
among the forces and secrets of nature; or shall we do something
positive for posterity, and leave the ages to come some certain and
abiding legacy of our treasures of art and learning?
It may be that human progress will go on and on to the end of time
without a break; that in the course of centuries mankind will surpass
us in civilization, knowledge and power, as much as we surpass the
earliest and rudest men we have yet found traces of: maybe infinitely
more.
In such a case, what would not the scholars of, say the year 5000
A.D., or any other future age, be willing to give for a comprehensive
picture of humanity as it exists to-day--for a reasonably complete
library of our literature, science, and art? We may safely assume
that nothing of the sort will be possible if matters are left to take
their natural course. By that time every structure, every machine,
every book, every work of art, now in use or stored away in our
libraries and galleries of art, will have disappeared, a prey to time,
the elements, or the more destructive violence of man.
On the other hand, it may be that, through repeated disasters of one
sort or another, mankind, three thousand years hence, will have lost
all the knowledge men ever possessed, and be slowly struggling upward
for the hundredth time from inherited barbarism. In such a case, what
enormous benefits might not accrue to man from a fortunate opening up
of the wealth of knowledge we possess!
In any supposable case between these extremes of progress or
degradation, a legacy of art and learning, such as we might easily set
apart for remote posterity, would certainly be acceptable, perhaps
extremely useful. Besides, it might be possible for us to set such a
worthy example to those who shall come after us that, come what might,
humanity would never be left absolutely void of the means of
instruction, nor any worthy human achievement be absolutely lost or
forgotten. The experience of these later years has demonstrated the
value of such legacies even when unintentional, unselected, and
wretchedly fragmentary. It has made clear also how a legacy
deliberately made may be indefinitely preserved.
Roughly outlined, the carrying out of such a truly philanthropic
enterprise would involve nothing more difficult than--
_First_. The construction of a practically indestructible treasure
chamber in some secure place; and
_Second_. The preparation of a library well calculated to withstand
the corroding tooth of time.
Two kinds of structures would meet the first demand--massive pyramids
of covered earth or of solid masonry, or chambers hewn from the heart
of some granitic hill. In low latitudes, where glacial action is not
to be feared, the pyramidal form might be preferable: in more northern
regions the rock-cut chamber would probably be at once cheaper and
more durable. In either case, an elevated site should be chosen as a
safeguard against submergence.
To secure the permanence of the records would be more difficult.
Ordinary books and papers would clearly be unsuitable for long
keeping; though for comparatively limited periods they might answer if
securely packed in airtight waterproof cases. Nothing liable to
spontaneous decay should be admitted. Stereotype plates of metal would
be even more open to objection than printed sheets. The noble metals
would be too costly, the baser would corrode; and with either the
value of the plates as metal would be a standing danger to the
deposit. The material basis of the library must be, as nearly as
possible, worthless for other uses (to insure them against the natural
greed of man), yet such as will hold the records sharply and
faithfully under all circumstances. The _terra cotta_ tablets of
ancient Assyria are instructive in this connection. Possibly plates of
artificial stone, or sheets of a _papier-maché_-like preparation of
asbestos, might be less bulky and equally durable.
Having determined this point, and dug from the solid rock a chamber
for the reception of our legacy, the next step would be the selection
of its contents. Obviously the books to be preserved should embrace
first of all lexicons and grammars of every known form of speech,
since it is impossible to tell which of the dialects of to-day will be
the parents of the dominant tongue of any distant future time; while
we may be practically certain that some one or more of the languages
of to-day will furnish a key to any language that men will ever use.
Next in order would come encyclopædias, the most comprehensive and
complete that there might be room for. The sacred books of all nations
might come next; then the works of the great poets, historians and
novelists; after them, the best obtainable records of art, science,
the various industries, and so on, with specimens of the best and most
typical of our works of art, manufacture, and the like.
The spaces between the various articles should be filled in with some
insoluble and neutral substance, to prevent corrosion, or the
infiltration of water and consequent damage to the plates. Then, the
entrance to the chamber being securely sealed, permanent records
should be made in many places and in various ways, setting forth the
purpose of the deposit, its exact location, and the nature of its
contents. Among such records not the least valuable would be deeply
cut polyglot inscriptions on natural cliffs in different parts of the
world, observation having shown that such records may remain to
challenge human curiosity for ages after all other records of their
time have disappeared.
Even a single deposit of this sort might prove of enormous value to
the race at some critical period of its history. But the probability
is that the good work would not end with one deposit. From age to age
this and other nations might repeat the experiment, commemorating in
this way important epochs in their history. The fashion once set might
easily become a permanent feature of all great national celebrations.
The cost would be comparatively small: a penny contribution from each
of the visitors to the Philadelphia Exhibition, for example, would
have been quite sufficient to provide for a memorial of our first
Centennial year that would have carried an imperishable picture of the
civilization of the day to the end of--our first millennium, at least;
and we may safely infer that, whatever may be the condition of the
world at that not very remote epoch, a memorial of that sort would be
something worth having.
As we have intimated, the custom might easily become general, so that
in the course of ages the earth would become dotted with such
repositories of art and learning. Then, come what might to
humanity--whatever might be the ups and downs of nations--whatever
moral, social, or intellectual advances mankind might make--whatever
lapses or disasters might befall them--it could hardly happen that a
knowledge of any considerable period of human history, or the
advantage of any worthy human achievement, could ever be permanently
blotted out and lost.
It is true that "posterity" has never done anything of the sort for
us. It is true that "posterity" may have no valid claim on us for such
a legacy. But we might venture to make "posterity" a present! It would
not cost us much, and it might turn out to be immensely valuable and
useful to some far future age.
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